


I’d rewrite the book of love, and make it funny

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Fluff, Frogs, Idiots in Love, M/M, Magic, True Love's Kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:35:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21592396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: Bucky would have thought, since that was essentially Steve’s position and he’d been very vocal about not bringing the tesseract back to earth so it could be studied, Steve would let Thor handle his brother and keep focusing his attack on the raging army of zombie bilgesnipes the Avengers had been fighting for the past few hours. But no, instead he was making that familiar face that said he was about to throw down. Bucky groaned.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 54
Kudos: 357





	I’d rewrite the book of love, and make it funny

**Author's Note:**

> Let's pretend there was no new canon after Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the Avengers are one big happy team.

When Bucky reached the area north of Central Park where Steve was fighting, he could see Thor holding Loki in an armlock, Mjolnir pressed against his brother’s chest, but it didn’t stop Loki from laughing at Thor and Steve. “It doesn’t belong with these cretinous halfwits, Brother. It’s as bound to me as your hammer is to you.” He grinned. “Every time we’ve let the humans have it, they’ve created disaster.” 

“And you haven’t?” Thor and Steve said in stereo.

Bucky would have thought, since that was essentially Steve’s position and he’d been very vocal about not bringing the tesseract back to earth so it could be studied, Steve would let Thor handle his brother and keep focusing his attack on the raging army of zombie bilgesnipes the Avengers had been fighting for the past few hours. But no, instead he was making that familiar face that said he was about to throw down. Bucky groaned.

“And I’m sorry, but bound to you, my ass,” Steve said. “You had it for a hot second and you lost it. You’re not taking it again, and we’re not listening to any more of your fairy tales.” Bucky raised his rifle and trained it on Loki, but in his sights he saw Thor go rigid, like he knew that was exactly the wrong thing to say to his brother. _Oh great._

“Ah, fairy tales!” Loki exclaimed with glee. “Shall we talk of fairy tales? About your Sleeping Beauty there and you the prince who woke him from his deathly sleep?” He jerked his chin in Bucky’s direction. Oh, Bucky didn’t like the sound of that one single bit. 

“Just return the tesseract to us!” Thor hollered, tightening his hold. “Why do you persist in this game?” Thor had been really pissed off to find that his brother was alive and wreaking havoc around the realms, so it was unsurprising to see them at each other’s throats over some space jewelry. The argument seemed to Bucky’s eyes like it was more about betrayal than keeping the cube away from him.

“Because it belongs to Asgard. It belongs to me.” 

Thor swung Loki around so he could toss the tesseract into Steve’s shield like it was a hot potato, and Bucky rushed to cover Steve’s six—because neither of them had noticed the glint in Loki’s eye or the weird golden-green shimmer that was growing around him. Maybe Bucky’d never experienced the god of mischief before, but he knew trouble when he saw it: that was a guy gearing up for some havoc. “Steve, watch out!” Bucky hollered.

Too late. Loki looked right at Steve with a smirk on his smarmy face and flicked his finger in a sweeping arc, then promptly disappeared, right along with the tesseract— _and Steve_. Thor stumbled forward, falling to his knees as he found himself suddenly holding on to air, little flickers of lightning curling around him as he stared at his hand, sans cube. He bounced to his feet, furious. 

The two of them stared at each other. “Well, shit,” Bucky said in a small voice.

“Steve!” Sam shouted over comms, making a swift circle above him. “Do you have eyes on Steve, Barnes? Where the hell did he go?” 

He could hear the other Avengers on the comms now, a hornet’s nest stirred to activity by Sam’s shout. Maybe Loki had taken the bilgesnipes with him and they had nothing else to fight. 

“What does that mean—‘well, shit’?” Tony snapped, tension ratcheting his voice higher. He sped over with Romanov in tow, and following them, Hawkeye and the Hulk. 

Even as an auxiliary Avenger, Bucky’d never really gotten comfortable with this team: Stark didn’t like him, Romanov was always wary—not that he blamed her, all things considered—and the Hulk kind of scared Bucky. Sam was cordial but carried a deep grudge, also understandable, and when Rhodes was around, he kept his distance. Barton and Thor were really the two who, besides Steve, didn’t make Bucky feel like a pariah, but Thor was often gone, he had his hands full with his own life on Asgard or with Dr. Foster, and a brother who loved to yank his chain. 

“Where’s Cap?” Hawkeye asked, cleaning off some arrows that appeared to be covered in bilgesnipe juice. Hulk roared in punctuation. 

“Did he take Steve?” Stark asked, somewhat frantically, face mask flipping up. 

“He turned into magic light and vanished with the cube, and Steve disappeared at the same time.” Bucky knew that his quietness, the way he kept to himself, was a contributing factor to some of Steve’s team not liking him, especially Tony—who often said that it was the quiet ones who were deadliest. To keep silent was hard conditioning to break, some of the hardest, really, but that wasn’t something he felt comfortable telling anyone but Steve—he’d tried to kill some of them, after all, and the last thing he desired was to make them think he wanted anyone to feel sorry for him. 

It made his neck itch, however, when they focused on him, and he winced and scratched it while they waited in vain for him to explain. If he opened his mouth any more, he might choke on panic.

“What do you mean, vanished?” Natasha asked. “With Loki? Thor, could Loki take him to Asgard? He has such a weird thing about Steve.”

“Heimdall!” Thor shouted to the sky, as electricity lifted his hair and made his eyes turn blue-white. Well, that was certainly…something. “Has Loki returned to Asgard, with our friend Captain Rogers?” 

Thor listened to this interstellar phone call before thanking his friend and looking at the team. “Neither Loki nor the captain are there. In fact, he claims Steve is still here. Nearby.”

“He sees everything but he can’t give us a cross-street? Convenient.” Stark huffed. “So…we’re gonna have to search physically and scan for his LoJack, if by ‘nearby’ your buddy means the greater metropolitan area and not, like, North America or the western hemisphere. The water, subways, everything. Let’s hope Loki didn’t cut the signal. JARVIS, what do you got for me?”

In the corner of his eye, Bucky caught the glint of something a few feet down the street. He squinted, wondering if it might be the shield or just a piece of trash, but didn’t see it again. Still, he was worried enough to leave nothing unexamined and strolled over to find a silver disc, the size of a dime, twinkling in the angled sunlight. Picking it up, he realized it wasn’t a dime—the other side revealed red and blue circles, with a white star in the middle. 

“Well, shit,” Bucky said.

“Stop saying that,” Stark grumbled, but thunked over in his direction, along with Natasha. 

“What is—” She stopped when Bucky held it up between his thumb and index finger. 

“He Lilliputted him! Your brother miniaturized Cap!” Tony snickered at Thor. Why did he sound more gleeful than troubled? He flipped his visor down and did a 360 of the area. Even with Bucky’s enhanced vision, he couldn’t see any sign of Steve, but there was no reason to think the shield would be miniaturized without the man. What if he’d been thrown somewhere a car could run over him, or hurled into the path of a dog that might see him as a tasty snack? A terrifying plethora of possibilities made Bucky’s head swim with nightmare scenarios gleaned from all those years of reading comic books and _Amazing Stories_ as a kid. Steve could already be dead; Loki didn’t just create mischief, he murdered people, Bucky knew that.

He’d never told Steve how much he loved him. He’d never told Steve the truth of what he felt for him, or shown him what it had meant to find him again in this century, to come back to himself and live his days alongside him. He’d never touched Steve’s face and drawn him into a kiss, or held his hand or… This was supposed to have been a nothing op—clean up Loki’s rampaging distractions, keep the tesseract away from him… Now Steve might be gone forever simply because the idea made Loki laugh.

Bucky looked around, trying to keep a lid on it. He waved everyone in different compass points so they could fan out and comb the streets, and told Stark and Sam to scan from the sky. Taking charge was what he was good at, and he should concentrate. He hadn’t gone a few steps when he saw, a foot away from a storm drain, a thumb-sized blue helmet and a matching crumpled uniform. Movement caught his eye at the edge of the drain, ripples in a little puddle leftover from last night’s rain. Bucky stepped toward it woodenly, dread closing off his throat. 

Looking up at Bucky was a little frog, glistening from the puddle, which seemed odd, but Central Park wasn’t that far away. “Hey, little fella,” Bucky said and bent to try to pick it up. “Oh no.” The frog chirped at him and hopped into his hand. It had— “Hey, do any of you know if frogs can have blue eyes?” Bucky asked over comms. That didn’t seem right. The frog blinked its huge blue peepers at him. 

“I doubt it,” Hawkeye commented as he and the Hulk thundered over his way. “Why, what do you—oh geez,” he said, stopping when he saw what Bucky held in his hand, and Hulk grunted in surprise. 

The little frog _ribbit_ ed at them, loudly, crossly. Yup, that was definitely— “Hey, Steve,” Bucky said with a pained smile.

~~~

“I mean, you have to admit, this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened to him,” Tony said after what was probably the fiftieth frog pun he’d made, because no one was laughing—well, except Clint—and they watched frog Steve leap straight at Tony’s face. Bucky caught him midair and set him gently back on the lab table. “One of the first things he ever said to me was ‘Is everything a joke to you?’ and now here he is, Michigan J. Frog, so how does he expect me to sleep on that. Still. As hysterical as this is, magic really freaks me out.”

Bruce nodded in sympathy. “But until Thor hauls Loki’s butt back here, we should at least try to figure out what we can do for Steve. I’m sure it wasn’t like he wanted to be turned into a frog.”

Steve croaked, Bucky guessed in agreement.

After they’d come back to the tower and cleaned up from the fight, Thor’d flown off to get Heimdall busy on finding Loki. The team met up in the research lab Tony and Bruce shared, everyone scrutinizing Steve as he sat in the middle of the table, which he was not at all happy about—he was back to being treated as a specimen, and there was little he hated more. The eyes stood out from the rest of his coloring: a vivid gold shading to a bright green, with a deep blue like his uniform on the underside of his legs and…arms, if they were called that, all of it fading to a pale green belly. 

The size of Bucky’s palm, Steve in frog form seemed to have certain recognizable characteristics—thicker limbs, a pronounced chest, defined features on his face/head. JARVIS had searched through hundreds of thousands of files but couldn’t identify Steve as any particular type of frog—which made sense: Steve was a singular human, and Loki probably knew very little about actual earth frogs. They couldn’t just ask Steve about it, either—he could still understand them, but the reverse wasn’t true.

Something serious was bothering Steve, though, beyond the fact of his circumstances—Bucky could tell that much, and it wasn’t just Tony’s insistence on singing “Hello! Ma Baby” and “I’m Just Wild About Harry” to him. Clint had been forced to explain the old cartoon to Bucky, but judging from Steve’s…well, hopping mad reaction, he’d understood the reference.

“What’s the difference between frogs and toads?” Clint asked, trying to boop Steve’s nose and getting a bite for the attempt, and JARVIS explained that frogs usually had smooth, wet skin where toads most often had dry, bumpy skin. 

“In fact, I might suggest a minimum of handling,” JARVIS added, “as frogs have highly sensitive skin and could become sick from contact. They have also been known to carry salmonella, although I highly doubt that’s true for Captain Rogers.” JARVIS paused. “I might also preemptively mention to Agent Barton that licking toads to achieve a hallucinogenic state is something of a myth, and is highly unsafe, even dangerous.”

Clint scratched his head as the others laughed at him. “That’s fair. I _was_ wondering about that.”

 _That’s it._ “I think there’s something wrong with him,” Bucky said. Because he was usually so quiet, when he did talk, they tended to pay attention, and all their heads swiveled in his direction. “He needs water, maybe, or food, or he’s been in contact with something that permeated the skin. He’s gotten paler since we got inside.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Natasha said, and beelined for one of the lab sinks, grabbing a shallow tray to fill with water. 

“The distilled water would be best,” JARVIS suggested. “Chlorine is also dangerous.” Jeez, he’d had no idea how high-maintenance amphibians were. Good thing they had a laboratory.

She brought the tray over and set it in front of Steve, who climbed inside. “What?” Natasha said when she caught everyone staring. “I loved snakes and frogs when I was a kid. Before…you know.” Judging by the way his chest was moving—like someone with asthma, Bucky thought, alarmed—he’d been needing this for a little while. He should have realized. The guilt felt all too familiar on Bucky’s shoulders, an artifact of days when Bucky hadn’t been able to care for Steve at all.

“Let’s—we should rig up something for communication so he can tell us what he needs,” Stark said to Banner. “Like a wide keyboard he can hop around on.” He quivered with the effort not to laugh at the idea, and Bucky wouldn’t have minded popping him one for treating this like a joke, but right now, they kinda needed the science bros’ help. 

Bucky looked down at Steve. Getting his skin moist had helped a bit, but he still looked a little listless, at least to Bucky’s untrained eye. “Communication would be great,” Bucky ventured, “but I think the first order of business should be obvious survival issues. Building him a safe and more appropriate environment, and most important, food.” 

“Right,” Bruce said. “He might still have his enhanced metabolism. JARVIS, what kind of food does he need? Anything unique to his…species?”

“Ah…no, I’m afraid Captain Rogers is a rather… _singular_ species. I’ve compared his form to a number of amphibians that closely resemble it, but I regret to say I can’t find a match. Most frogs are carnivorous, so his diet would most likely include insects, worms, even other amphibians such as salamanders.”

Tony couldn’t contain himself any more and broke out in a cackle. Steve launched himself across the table to land in front of him, water droplets flying everywhere, as though he wanted Tony to pick him up. When Tony did, Steve’s tongue shot out of his mouth, splat, right onto the lens of Tony’s stupid yellow glasses, yanking them off his face. 

“Revenge of Michigan J. Frog,” Clint muttered, amused, and Bucky stifled a laugh. “That tongue’s got better aim than I do.”

Tony pressed his lips in a thin line and picked up his glasses, pointedly cleaning them on his shirt. “Ew.”

“Are you hungry?” Bucky asked gently, taking Steve from Tony and setting him back in the water. His little nod was sort of a whole front-of-body affair, since he had no real neck to speak of. 

“JARVIS, could you order some different types of frog food and we can see which ones he wants?” Natasha said. “I imagine nature will let itself take over and you’ll take what appeals most,” she added, looking at Steve. Even Bucky had to admit it was…sweet to see the way the team was still treating him like Steve, jokes or not, and coming together to problem-solve. 

“Does he need an aquarium, or a terrarium, or…I don’t know, something else entirely?” Bucky added. He’d have to do some reading up about frog care while they waited for Thor. Jesus, he hoped there was a solution for this. It had been Bucky’s first encounter with Loki: the stories he’d heard had given him a healthy fear of the god, and this was a perfect example of why. “Can we order something like that with the food?”

“Maybe a hybrid of both,” Tony suggested, as the lab doors opened and Sam Wilson joined them. Without Steve as team leader or Colonel Rhodes around, they’d needed someone to stay behind to manage the cleanup and deal with city government, and Sam had volunteered.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Sam said, blinking at frog Steve on the table. “I mean, you told us and I thought I believed you, but…damn.” 

“We’re thinking of getting him a little top hat and cane, too,” Tony threw in, and Bucky glared right along with Steve.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked Steve, because he was exactly that sort of guy to roll with things and never lose sight of someone’s humanity, even when they were an amphibian. 

So far, the sounds Steve had made were ribbity croaks and little chirps, but this time his whole body gave a huge jerk and suddenly his throat bubbled outward with a deep, almost belch-like sound. It seemed to surprise Steve as much as it did all of them, and his eyelids closed, his left hand came up over his face, and he shrank back into himself. It was the cutest thing Bucky’d ever seen.

“I thought that was a mating thing,” Bruce said, eyes wide.

“No kink-shaming the frog,” Tony said.

“Man, don’t make this any weirder than it already is,” Sam groaned. “Do any of you know much about frogs?” They all shook their heads.

“We’re learning as we go,” Bruce said, “mostly from JARVIS,” and Bucky thought maybe he was chagrined, because as science guy he should know more and his authority was now called into question.

“I’m sorry this is happening.” Sam directed that to Steve before turning to the others. “I know Loki’s got some weird thing about Steve, but I mean, why a frog?”

“Steve said something that provoked him and gave him an idea, I guess.” Bucky shrugged. Who would attempt to explain Thor’s brother? “Thor told us before he left that Loki often turned into a snake as a kid, so I don’t know, maybe he likes reptiles and amphibians.” And like they’d said a couple times, he seemed to have a weird fascination with Steve.

“Maybe instead of trying to get Loki to reverse it, we could find someone else to undo it,” Clint offered cheerfully.

“Like who, Tim the Enchanter?” Tony said. “Because I don’t know any sorcerers or wizards or whatever just tooling around in New York City, waiting for a chance to play magic wars with a god of mischief.”

This was ramping up Bucky’s anxiety, not to mention Steve was getting…well, jumpy. He couldn’t abide not having control, not being able to fend for himself—it came from a lifetime of having no control and a body that had betrayed him. His mind must be roiling with fear. “Maybe the best thing for me to do would be to take him back to the apartment while you guys see what you can figure out. Reduce the stress on him having to listen to this.”

“That’s a splendid idea, Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS said. “I’ll send the supplies to you as soon as they arrive.”

He knew they’d be talking about him the instant he left, wondering if he could keep it together in this type of crisis. They had no real sense of what he was capable of, Bucky knew that. It was fine—just as long as they worked on a solution, they could talk about him all they wanted. Bucky held his hand out as Steve walked up into it—until this he’d never known frogs walked, thought they only hopped or jumped. As he left, he heard Natasha say, “I’m worried about him,” and Tony responded, “Me too. God, I freaking hate magic.” As the doors closed, he heard her correct him. “It’s not Steve I’m worried about, it’s Barnes.”

~~~

Their apartment wasn’t any improvement in terms of an environment, really, for a frog—they really were a couple of old men, kept the place at a higher than average temperature, the effect of them both having spent so much time on ice. But that made it somewhat dry, there were no plants in the place Bucky could settle him into for the meantime, not to mention they weren’t currently stocked up on fresh insects or mealworms or anything like that. 

First things first—Bucky turned on the shower and got the bathroom nice and steamy, setting Steve down into the puddles left on the tile while he stripped his dirty, sweaty tac gear off in the bedroom. He hadn’t taken the time to change earlier, so focused on taking care of Steve. 

Steve climbed up on the ledge of the shower, watching Bucky with his slow-blinking eyes. As disconcerting as all of this was, he couldn’t stop wondering what thoughts might be going through Steve’s mind right now, other than anger at his predicament. Should he be undressing in front of him now, when he wouldn’t have otherwise? Was Bucky making things awkward for them in a way it hadn’t been since he’d come back with Steve and Sam? Steve probably resented like hell being cared for this way—he’d certainly resented it in his youth, not to mention that maybe he also thought this was a manner of behaving around each other they’d long since grown out of and Bucky was a creep. 

Bucky pulled on some sweats and a T-shirt, taking Steve’s tiny shield and uniform out of the pockets before he threw his gear in the hamper. It occurred to him that Steve hadn’t actually seen himself—he’d held his front…paw? hand?—he had no idea what they were called—up to stare at it in that first moment Bucky’d discovered him by the storm drain. But he hadn’t really seen himself. “Hey, do you want to see what you look like?” Bucky asked softly. Steve leapt up out of the shower, straight into Bucky’s hand; even as a frog, Steve was impressive, and Bucky grinned at him. He held him up to the mirror; Steve blinked furiously. His little…shoulders, or that general area, slumped. Oh no—another guilt pang stabbed Bucky right in the heart. “Even as a frog, you’re handsome. I’d kiss you.” He chucked Steve tenderly under the chin.

Steve blinked more rapidly, responding with a cute little chirp as Bucky pressed his lips tight together, completely embarrassed—he absolutely had not intended to say that out loud. “You must be really hungry,” he muttered to cover for himself, and he could swear Steve smiled, just a little. “So, if frogs are carnivores and will eat other frogs or lizards, I wonder if something like a little chicken will tide you over till the right food gets here.” Steve’s throat pouch expanded again, like he wanted to make it clear how enthusiastically he supported that idea. Who cared whether it was normally a mating thing? It was charming, was all Bucky thought.

“Technically, yes, you could feed him chicken,” JARVIS said, “although it’s not recommended. It would be best to boil it first, if you feel you can’t wait for the delivery.”

Steve scowled, so Bucky wasn’t waiting; they went to the kitchen and he took the chicken breasts out of the refrigerator he’d been planning to cook that night. He set some in the water and they waited for it to boil, then Bucky cut one into a few tiny cubes and placed them on a plate in front of Steve, who cocked his head sideways. His head darted forward so quickly Bucky almost didn’t track it, one of the cubes disappearing into his mouth. That sticky tongue was almost too fast to catch even for someone with Bucky’s enhanced vision—were all frogs that fast, or was it just because it was Steve? For that matter, he wondered, was Bruce right that Steve’s souped-up metabolism was still at work? He might require more frequent feedings, more of everything, just because the serum was still at work. 

For the next few minutes, Bucky ate his own meal while watching in fascination as Steve ate his. “I don’t want to screw around with your diet too much, but at least we know this works in a pinch and I might not kill you with my incompetence. I never knew frogs were carnivorous, did you?” Steve moved his head back and forth. “You know I’m not going to let anything happen to you if I can help it. The way we were when we were kids—I’ll keep an eye on you, just like I did then. Maybe I can’t fix this, but I’ll do everything I can for you.” Bucky stroked his finger along the smooth, slightly sticky skin of Steve’s back, and Steve leaned toward his touch, closing his eyes, making those happy chirping sounds again. So Bucky kept rubbing, switching from side to side. It was like the amphibian version of a purring cat, and he smiled down at Steve. “You’ve saved my life at least a couple times. I guess I never said thank you for that last one, for reminding me who I was. No sensible person should willingly put their life in my hands, but I’m not going to let you down.” 

Opening his eyes, Steve blinked up at him; there was such softness in his gaze that it knocked Bucky’s breath out of his chest and he stared back at Steve quizzically. He gave a loud _ribbit_ and stuck out his right front hand. Bucky uncurled his index finger and Steve wrapped his four sticky little fingers around it. He held tight to Bucky’s finger, chirping, and Bucky chuckled softly. “Yeah, me too, pal.”

All this turmoil had been exhausting for Bucky and he found himself drifting off to sleep right there at the kitchen counter, Steve’s little hand still wrapped around Bucky’s finger. A quiet _bong_ sound startled him and Steve awake, though, and Bucky rubbed at his eyes. “Yeah?”

“The vivarium equipment and food’s arrived, Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS said. He put Steve on the counter to let the delivery guy in. 

“Hey, man,” the guy said, looking at an invoice. “I’m Noe Gutierrez, I’m the reptiles and aquatics guy, I hear you have an urgent need for frog-care supplies?” He offered a hand and then they pulled everything from his trolley cart to pile on the dining table. “It’s not every day we get an emergency call for frog food and vivarium setups, and at Avengers headquarters, no less. I kind of had to see this for myself.” He was taking things out of boxes, explaining what they were, not that Bucky understood much of it. Steve was…frowning, Bucky felt sure of it, though his face was immobile.

“I took the liberty of ordering everything one could possibly require in keeping amphibians,” JARVIS said, “and it’s possible not all purchases will be necessary. It seemed best to go with a paludarium—a sort of aquarium-terrarium hybrid often employed by zoos.”

Noe looked around, confused but also impressed.

“It’s an artificial intelligence,” Bucky said, pointing at the ceiling. “One of Stark’s inventions.”

“Whoa. That is so cool. Man, I can’t believe I get to check this place out!” He stepped toward Steve. “What kind of frog is that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it. Some kind of new species?” Steve croaked loudly. Noe probably thought they’d been Avengering in some exotic locale and stumbled upon a previously undiscovered frog while fighting crime. If only.

“He’s…a very special frog. I think it’s safe to say he’s one of a kind.” Bucky flashed Steve a smile.

Once he’d finished explaining the paludarium equipment, he handed Bucky a checklist and the food, and ran through everything he thought they’d need to know about a frog’s special care requirements. He followed up with a warning: “Frogs will eat till they explode if you let ’em. But the good thing is they don’t need to be fed every day.” He’d noticed Bucky’s metal arm earlier, but pointedly ignored it, so Bucky gave him a very large tip for his thoughtfulness and for coming out in the evening. But despite his assurance of how easy it was, within a few minutes of his departure, Bucky wished to hell he’d asked him to stay.

“Geez, this is way more complicated than I thought.” There were contraptions for warming water, and warming the tank, and creating mist, and soil and leafy things and moss and water drops. There were also bags full of live creepy-crawlies, and he looked over at Steve, shrugging apologetically. Bucky could disassemble and reassemble the most high-tech weapons known to humans while blindfolded, but just reading the instructions gave him palpitations. He’d never had pets before of any sort; when they were younger, Steve had been allergic to literally everything and Bucky had never wanted him to avoid coming over, and then when they’d lived together, it was out of the question. Was he even up to this task? He took lives, he didn’t care for them—he didn’t even really care for himself. He’d had handlers for that. Success with the chicken aside, what if he actually screwed this part up and killed Steve instead?

As if he knew what Bucky was thinking, JARVIS said, “It does appear daunting, but I might remind you that much of it may not be needed. I simply wanted to take every contingency into account, since we don’t know the particular type of frog Captain Rogers has become.” 

Steve did a pretty good impression of supportive agreement, and Bucky said, “Thanks. Maybe you can walk me through it and correct me if I’m messing it up?”

“Mr. Stark’s on his way here, actually. I think he’d be eminently qualified to help with setup.”

He shot Steve a grimace. Romanov’s Hydra data dump had featured some very large holes, notably around the time of Howard and Maria Stark’s deaths, and everyone had—probably correctly—assumed from context the Winter Soldier had been the one to kill them. Bucky didn’t blame Tony for not liking him, for unhappily tolerating his presence as an auxiliary Avenger, but it also meant he didn’t spend much time around Steve these days, and never came around when Bucky was alone.

Before Tony could knock, Bucky opened the door. Scratching the back of his neck, he asked awkwardly, “Any word yet from Thor?”

“Nope. I guess he’s, like, using a raven or something that’s taking its sweet time,” Tony said, brushing past him. “Meanwhile, Bruce is working on an idea—god knows we’ve got plenty of Steve’s blood samples, and if we take a sample from Michigan here, we might be able to find some kind of discrepancy that we could rejigger, maybe override whatever the magic made happen. Don’t get your hopes up, though.” He looked at the stuff on the table. “Jesus, I hate magic. You can’t science against it. We could be completely talking out our asses.”

Magic was a large part of what had created the Soldier, so Bucky couldn’t agree more. All those serums and blue goo and weird inventions of Zola’s had derived from the tesseract; it was a Hydra weapon that had blown him out of the train; a nugget of it still powered his metal arm. To Thor, science and magic were intertwined and beautiful, but to Bucky, magic was the sinister, cruel flip-side of natural law, it preyed on the weak, those who had no ability to fight against it because they had no equal powers. Loki could have his precious goddamn tesseract—bringing it back here again for study it had been foolish and arrogant, and now Steve was paying the price.

“What’s all this?” Tony jerked his chin at the equipment.

“Stuff for a…what was it called?” he asked the ceiling.

“Paludarium,” JARVIS supplied.

“Since we don’t know specifically what kind of frog Steve is, it gives him a little of both worlds. But I’m not sure I’m qualified to put all this together. Making a little landscape for him, sure, but the electric stuff…probably have to look it up on YouTube and have JARVIS walk me through it.”

“Hm, well, good thing you know an engineering genius who can save you the trouble.” He spread his hands wide and in between them a large, circular holographic keyboard emerged—it looked like one of Stark’s projection keyboards, but it was shaped almost like a giant bowl. He picked Steve up out of the sink. Would this ever not be strange? “So this is a basic qwerty keyboard like you’re familiar with, but we’ve separated the keys widely so that you can hop or stretch your…hands…toward a few letters at a time without too much pressure required. The other half has some common words so you won’t have to type letter by letter. The field allows you to sit on the board for typing, but don’t go too crazy, it’s light pressure and if you jump too hard you’ll fall straight through.” Steve gave a happy little croak. “It’s predictive, too. Sort of like a Swype app.” Tony let Steve down into the circle. 

“That’s fantastic, thank you,” Bucky said gratefully, even though he didn’t know what a swipe app was and wasn’t about to admit that to Tony. 

Steve hopped up and touched the T and H keys with his two front feet and JARVIS’s voice read out the letters, filling in {{Thank you}} after Steve hit the N. He blinked up at Tony, who appeared uncomfortable with the acknowledgement.

So of course he had to turn it into a joke. “Nothin’s too good for you, Kermie. I know it’s not easy being green.”

Steve’s pupils narrowed to slits. {{M-O-T-H-E-R-F-}} 

“…All right.” Bucky yanked him hastily off the board. “Gratitude, remember?” he whispered. Steve bristled, getting all puffed up, but let Bucky put him over on the kitchen counter to watch from there. After JARVIS’s comment about not handling frogs much, he was starting to worry about how much he was touching Steve, all the back and forthing, but they couldn’t exactly put the keyboard inside the paludarium.

“I thought I’d set it up here on the console so Steve could watch TV or look out the window, depending.”

Tony laughed, short and sharp, but instantly sobered. “It’s just so weird. Don’t you think this is just crazy weird? I mean, it’s a thoughtful thing you’re doing, but it doesn’t stop being weird that you’re having to think of it at all.”

Bucky nodded, and Steve croaked.

Tony barely even looked at the setup instructions, pulling things out of the boxes, turning them around in his hands, and just going to work. Bucky’d rarely watched him do his work, and it was kind of fascinating—he seemed to grasp the function of items with merely a glance, the way they were used. When he needed something like the water or soil, he snapped his fingers and ordered Bucky to get it, but it wasn’t rude or condescending. He was, in fact, just like his father. Tony talked absently while he worked, probably to keep Steve and Bucky’s minds from their predicament.

When he was done, he stood back to admire his handiwork. “Wow, that’s a posh pad, there, Steverino. Hand to God, it’s nicer than my bungalow in Belize. Wanna try it out?”

Steve leapt all the way from the counter to the table, hopping up on the keyboard and typing out, {{Sorry for before Thank you I mean it}}

This time, Tony didn’t try to deflect, just shook his head. “I’m sorry, buddy,” he said with uncharacteristic gravity. “But we’ll figure it out. You won’t have to live in this or eat worms for long, not if I can help it.”

Bucky set Steve in the terrarium tank, where he climbed onto some branches. The warm mist had steamed it up a little, and it looked appropriately jungle-like in there. Steve seemed happy, so he gave a couple of chirps to Tony.

“All right. My work here is done. Pep’s due back tomorrow so I better go hide all the porn.” He hovered at the threshold, not really looking Bucky in the eye, but somewhere past his head. “Listen, I—”

At the same time, Bucky said, “You know, I—” and they both stopped, mouths open, then both started speaking again and stopped, feeling stupid. Tony waved his hands in front of him like he was brushing at particularly irritating cobwebs, and Bucky held his hands out. “I mean, I just wanted to say—”

“I know.” Tony looked off toward Steve. “Right, I know.”

From behind him, Bucky heard a really loud croak and turned to see Steve holding on to the edge of the tank, his little mouth open wide—it looked as though he was laughing at them. “’kay, see ya, bye” and Tony shuffled away, muttering to JARVIS about something. 

“Simmer down,” Bucky said to Steve, pointing at him.

Steve hopped out of the tank, all the way over to the keyboard. {{Nice to see you working together}}

Bucky tilted his head, shrugged. “I guess. We’re not getting engaged or anything.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve wrote {{Hungry}}. He left the keyboard and crawled up Bucky’s metal forearm. 

“You shouldn’t do that. I’m not supposed to handle you too much.” Steve gave him A Look. ‘If you can wrap your head around it, I’ll open up that box of crickets. I mean, it’s not like people don’t eat insects in other parts of the world, but…”

Steve nodded, or what passed for a nod in frog. When Bucky held out one of the crickets, he examined it with narrow-eyed skepticism, but then let instinct take over and gobbled it up fast, so Bucky grabbed a bunch more. _They’ll eat till they explode,_ Noe had said. “I know this feels degrading. I know you’re worried. But I have to admit, I like being able to help you for once, do something for you like you’ve done for me.” He smiled. “And Thor loves you, you know, he’ll find a way to fix this.”

Steve didn’t seem to take offense. “You want to watch TV?” Bucky asked when they were finished. “I bet you’re tired, after all this.” Bucky certainly was; he was hitting that point where he could barely keep his eyes open. Steve chirped, so Bucky lifted him over to the terrarium tank, grabbed a beer, and flopped down on the couch with yesterday’s leftover pizza to watch a Laurel & Hardy picture. Just as he’d expected, his eyes began to droop before Stan and Ollie could get into a mess, and pretty soon he was out like a light.

~~~

Bucky was still asleep on the couch in the morning when Sam showed up, carrying jumbo breakfast burritos from the lobby café and mochas. Bucky sighed with satisfaction as he bit into one and washed it down with coffee. “I gotta change,” Bucky said, “fell asleep on the couch.”

“Was he making this much noise all night?” Sam asked, peering into the paludarium, where Steve was busily croaking away.

“Sort of. At least, when I nodded off—I don’t know, it didn’t seem loud to me. I thought it was kind of peaceful.” He helped Steve out of the tank. “Plus, if he’s talking, it lets me know he’s okay and I haven’t managed to kill him yet.”

Sam’s brow shot up when Steve hopped on to the keyboard and wrote {{Stop talking abou tme like Im not here}}

“Fancy,” Sam said, ignoring Steve’s complaint. “That’s what Stark and Banner made?” Steve dropped his head in assent. “I like it.” He sipped his coffee. “Stark wants an all-hands meeting, Thor’s inbound. You want to come?” he asked Steve. 

{{Not sure want bad news}}

“Nah, it’ll be okay. Besides, can’t get much worse than yesterday, right?” 

If frogs could scowl, that’s what Steve was doing. 

“We gotta make sure to not let his skin dry out and keep him warm,” Bucky reminded Sam as they went upstairs to the big conference room. 

“That is such a weird thing to say about your super-powered friend. Man, this is just so weird, isn’t it?”

“That’s what Stark said last night.” 

Bucky set Steve down next to him on the big conference table. He seemed happy to see Thor, who smiled down at him sweetly, promising this deed would not go unpunished.

Although Thor was, for the first time since Bucky’d known him, frazzled. “This is the hazard with my brother,” he explained. “His shapeshifting capabilities and projections can make it difficult for Heimdall to find him, and right now, we’re not sure he’s actually in…this universe.”

Bruce twitched his head. “Wait. Are you saying there might be an alternate universe—that the multiverse theory is real?” He seemed unusually excited about this. 

“Yes. I think there may even be two tesseracts in play. Or perhaps an alternate timeline.” He held his hands out. “I only know that with the tesseract, space becomes a playground, he could do whatever he wants. But I have every confidence Heimdall and my father will find it and find Loki. In the meantime, my work is to discover someone who can undo the spell. That gets tricky, fiddling with someone else’s magic. It’s the lesser option,” he said, looking at Steve.

Bruce and Tony both looked as though it was Christmas morning and all the toys were for them. Thor had no idea what he might have set in motion.

On the other hand— “Man, that guy’s just my favorite,” Clint grumbled. “We should always invite him to shindigs, he really brings the fun. What about the shield? Can we embiggen it?”

“You mean, can we _enlarge_ it?” Bruce asked, and Clint smirked. “I highly doubt it, since it was the same spell. Inanimate objects wouldn’t be any different from animate ones, would they?” He looked at Thor for confirmation.

Natasha chimed in. “Clint’s got a good point—we’re down one Avenger, if something breaks out, and we can always make use of the shield. Not as well as Steve does, but one more tool in the kit…”

Thor sighed. “Without Steve to carry it, what does it matter?”

“I can make another shield,” Tony told Nat, “using my alloy. Won’t be vibranium, but I mean, it’s there. Like the man said, though, what does it matter? Cap’s still a frog, and we each have our own thing already.”

“I can do it,” Bucky said. He didn’t _want_ to, but he could. “I’ve used it before.” He glanced at Steve, who was visibly distressed. “It’ll be okay—I promise I won’t get blown off a train again.” He gave Steve a sad smile. When he looked up, everyone was staring at _him_ , stricken. 

“You two are like some kind of Greek tragedy,” Tony muttered, but there was no edge to his voice, only regret. “All right, till we get Frogger back to normal, Barnes is Captain America, and we’ll all keep working on our various things.”

Fortunately, there were no emergencies worth assembling the Avengers for, and Bucky was able to devote himself to looking after Steve. Bruce had come by to take some blood, not yet ready to give up hope that science could find a way; Sam hung around a lot trying to keep both their spirits up; Natasha and Clint made runs to the pet store and for human takeout so that Bucky didn’t have to go out or cook; Tony did as he promised and made a shield, just in case. Pepper had even come by to have tea with Bucky while he told her about the Event, which Clint had taken to calling it. She’d watched Steve with a curious gaze, sometimes lost in thought, and it fascinated Bucky to spend time with her away from Tony. She’d been one of the first people here to treat him like a human, when he hadn’t felt much like one at all.

When he and Steve were alone, he found himself saying things to Steve he’d never been able to before—as though Steve’s vulnerable state had picked the lock he’d set on his heart, unearthed his buried soul. He could talk about what Hydra had done to him, tell Steve what it was like to find himself again, unweighted by Steve’s guilt or anger. Confide how much Steve had given him back. Bucky would rub the side of Steve’s head as he leaned into it, his happy little chirps like music. Steve would never really know what it was like to love someone in the way he loved Steve, because he was perfect and golden in whatever form. In this state, Bucky could show him affection without an open declaration, and Steve wouldn’t feel obligated to return it.

He had always loved Steve, it was one of the first things he’d rediscovered. And he’d never had the courage to do anything about it. His memories were shadows of themselves, faded the way a poster hanging in a window lost its color, bit by bit. First the solidity of the black ink, then the red heart, the yellow light, till what was left was a sad, watery blue, ghostly, indistinct. Somehow Steve had revived the colors of his past, bringing him back to vivid life. There was nothing Bucky wouldn’t do for him in return.

~~~

For a change of pace, Bucky took Steve down to the lab one morning to test the new shield out, joined by Sam. It had a different weight from Steve’s shield, but he liked the magnetic grips that clung to his metal arm like barnacles. It might make a great backup shield, if they returned Steve to normal. _When_ they returned him to normal. Tony had even made a uniform for Bucky: it used the all-black of his tac gear but added red, white, and blue accents. 

Clint happily joined in to take carefully aimed shots at Bucky, and Tony seemed pleased with the bulletproofing, the weight distribution, and the ease of handling. Steve croaked his approval when Bucky showed off to him. They’d talked about that once—having the world see Bucky as a good guy, the way Steve did, and he could see the pride in Steve’s eyes.

“There you all are,” Pepper said as she came in to the lab, Natasha trailing behind her, and something in their faces said they had serious business on their minds. “I was talking to Natasha, and we had a thought.” 

“About One Froggy Evening?” Sam asked, and Tony held his hand out for Sam to low-five. 

Pepper favored him with a withering look. “Don’t any of you watch Disney movies, or remember fairy tales? This has been bothering me since I got back, but Natasha says that it’s never come up.” She stared at them for the hopeless cases they were. “Steve being turned into a frog is straight out of a fairy tale—the Frog Prince, in fact. Or if you want to go Disney, the Princess and the Frog. Has Thor said whether true love’s kiss can break a spell?”

Tony sputtered out a laugh, and Bruce looked around like he’d been caught on a prank show. Steve let out a really big croak, which made Sam and Clint both laugh out loud. Pepper quelled them with a glare. 

“Barnes, didn’t you say that Loki taunted Steve before he changed?” Natasha asked. 

“Um…yeah. I don’t remember it exactly. I think was about—oh. Oh shit.” Yeah, now he recalled. “He was yammering about the tesseract being his soulmate, and Steve said something about not wanting to hear his fairy tales. Loki called him Sleeping Beauty, I think.”

Pepper and Natasha exchanged a glance. “True love’s kiss,” Natasha said with a tilt of her head.

“No freaking way.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “Uh-uh.”

“I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but if that’s the case— Would we have to find someone…we’d have to take him down to Peggy, then? She could undo it?” Sam said, embarrassed to be floating that solution. “The idea of forcing a ninety-five-year-old woman to kiss a frog to undo a magic spell is kind of…” He spread his hands. Yeah, there wasn’t really a lot you could say about that. 

“Before we jump the gun,” Pepper suggested, “we can wait till we hear from Thor. But I’m always inclined to take action myself if I can.” That’s what Bucky admired about Pepper: she was take-charge but not hot-headed.

“I mean…you gotta be kidding me. Are we really talking about this like we accept the premise?” Tony scoffed. “This isn’t a Disney movie, in case you weren’t paying attention. Fairy tales are human stories, Asgardians and…whatever he is, frost giants, have their own damn myths. I don’t think frog-kissing figures into it.”

“That’s what it is. A myth.” Bruce frowned. “And we’re not buying that myth, right? We’re not discussing dragging a frog down to Washington so we can force Steve’s long-lost love, who suffers from memory loss, to kiss him?”

“Well, when you put it that way,” Clint said, shrugging. “But you gotta admit, that’s just the kind of messed up way Loki thinks: ‘hyuk-hyuk, I’ll change him into a frog that can only be transformed by a kiss from his one true love.’ He knows enough about our culture and I sure as hell wouldn’t put it past him to turn it on a kiss, because that’s an asshole thing to do and he’s an asshole.”

Steve began hopping up and down, agitated, until Tony realized what he wanted and pressed a button on his wrist thing; the keyboard appeared in front of him. He focused his little froggy eyes on Bucky and hopped on the keyboard. {{Loki didn’t call ME Sleeping Beauty}}, he typed out. {{You}} and he croaked loudly, annoyed with Bucky for getting it wrong. He pointed a thin little finger at himself and then typed out {{Prince}}.

Pepper smiled softly at Bucky. “Did Loki indicate Steve was your Prince Charming?”

Thinking back to that moment, Bucky tried to pull the memory back out. Even on good days, his head was still like a faulty hard drive, and they’d been in the middle of a battle to keep the tesseract… “I mean…yeah. That’s right: Loki said Steve was the prince who woke me up. Sleeping Beauty up, I mean,” and Bucky could feel the blush spread up his neck into his face. 

But that didn’t mean Bucky could change Steve. That was just crazy. Steve gave a loud chirp, as if he knew what Bucky was thinking. He jumped hard on the keyboard, almost punching right through the resistance field. {{True love kiss}}

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” Pepper insisted. 

“You’re gonna really be embarrassed when Barnes lays one on him and nothing happens,” Tony said condescendingly.

“Indulge me, then, and I’ll feel suitably dumb if I’m wrong,” Pepper purred.

Bucky’s gaze darted wildly around the room. They were all staring at him, a mix of hopeful, doubtful, and amused. It would have been a lot less intimidating if he didn’t have an audience. “All right. I’ll give it a try, but… Don’t get your hopes up, is what I’m saying.” _He_ loved Steve, absolutely. But he wasn’t Steve’s true love. He didn’t have the power to undo an Asgardian fairy tale magic spell.

Bucky set the shield down and picked Steve up, holding him in front of his face. “Here goes nothin’, pal.” He puckered up like he was reluctantly kissing his Aunt Lucille at Christmas and pressed his mouth to Steve’s…well, frogs didn’t really have lips, but the edge of his mouth, anyway.

A whooshing sound enveloped them, and Bucky heard a couple people gasp. A brilliant orange light swirled around him and Steve, sparkling and effervescent, as though they were inside a tornado made of a million lightning bugs. Electricity coursed through his body and then suddenly he was face to face—mouth to mouth—with Steve, and they were kissing. _They were still kissing._ Bucky closed his eyes as Steve’s hand caressed his jaw, the kiss getting more intense, crackling with electricity. This wasn’t his hopeful imagination running away with him; he could feel Steve’s strong, human hands on his body, his dry, warm skin under Bucky’s fingertips. The heat of Steve’s body lit a fire inside Bucky. 

Who’d have thunk it…he _was_ Steve’s true love. He’d undone the spell.

“See? True love’s kiss,” Pepper said, as she and Natasha nodded smugly. “I told you.”

Bucky settled his hand at Steve’s throat, on the beat of his pulse, dimly aware of the rest of the room as they separated. He was afraid to open his eyes, until Sam said with a dry chuckle, “He nakey.”

“ _Yeah_ he is,” Clint agreed enthusiastically.

“Oh my god,” Natasha said and handed Bucky the shield and the uniform so he could defend Steve’s modesty. 

“Um, maybe you guys could give us a minute,” Steve said, and Bucky struggled not to laugh, squinching his face up in delight. Yeah. He was Steve’s true love, he’d undone the spell. “We should get you dressed and go back to the apartment.”

“Don’t stress about it on our account,” Nat said, raising her eyebrow. 

“No, no, take your assets out of my lab, how dare you sully my sanctum,” Tony said, holding his hands up in front of his eyes. “You”—he pointed at Pepper—“stop looking at…things.” But he added, “Though I’ve never been happier to be wrong. Welcome back, Steve.”

“It’s good to be back,” he said, gazing at Bucky as they filed out. “Never thought I’d say this, but I think I owe Loki a debt of gratitude.” He stepped into the uniform, not at all bashful. Always full of surprises, was Steve. 

“I guess you could invite him to the wedding in thanks,” Bucky offered.

“We’re already getting divorced before we got married.”

“He does seem to have a thing about you.”

“Well,” Steve said, “I have to admit, I never would have realized on my own that you felt this way. Never could have had the courage if you hadn’t said some of the things you said. So he’d never want it, but he gave us a weird gift.”

“Yeah. I didn’t… I never believed you could feel that way. Maybe in his psycho way he saw something we couldn’t see ourselves.”

Steve kissed him again and picked up the shield. “You realize now there’s a lifetime of frog-lover jokes ahead of you. Everything will be frogs—frog knick-knacks, frog shirts, frog undershorts. From now on, it’s frogs all the way down.”

“I’ll live.” He took Steve’s very human, very large hand and they went toward the elevator. “Someone’s gotta eat all those crickets and worms, though. You hungry?”

“Do you still have Noe’s number?” Steve asked, gazing at him adoringly. “I feel the urge coming on to make a donation to a school program or needy kid.”

“What kind of sicko are you that you’d feed needy kids worms and crickets?”

“The paludarium, dumbass,” Steve said, pushing Bucky into the elevator and covering him with kisses.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Laurie Anderson's "My Eyes."
> 
> This was _very_ loosely inspired by the super adorable frogvengers panels in the Pet Avengers comics, where Thor, Bucky Cap, and Tony get turned into frogs, and Bucky still has his metal arm. There's also a whole story where Thor becomes Throg, with the cutest little hammer (no, that's not a euphemism). A+ highly recommended.
> 
> OMG, ratcreature made the cutest art of Frog!Steve, you can see it at the link below!
> 
> I was using a different writing program this time and was constantly making errors—if you see anything really odd like missing text or names where initials/letters should be, please feel free to let me know. It's very different from what I'm used to and it was an uphill battle.
> 
> On [tumblr.](https://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/189347511655/new-fic-id-rewrite-the-book-of-love)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Doodle for Gwyn's "I'd rewrite the book of love, and make it funny"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21599056) by [ratcreature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratcreature/pseuds/ratcreature)




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